needs v wants and I live a simpler life.
Concerts.
In the 90s youd go to the record store that had a ticket kiosk. Tickets were 10 to 20 dollars, youd get a printed ticket.
Now it just sucks. Venues add fees, ticketmaster fees double the price, printing fees, sometimes you cant even get the digital ticket until the day of and hope nithing goes wrong.
It all just sucks now.
I go down to my local dive bar and watch some local guys play rock and blues…for tips.
McDonalds. It used to at least be cheap. Now it’s both expensive and still tastes bad.
Subscriptions 🏴☠️
Hard drives. I have a movie hobby and that takes a lot of storage and well, storage now is 3-5 times more expensive than not two years ago and I can’t afford it anymore.
But on the flip side, people can now finally nudify my daughter, so that is totally worth it!
Fuck everything about AI.
I am waiting patiently for the AI bubble to pop so that all of a sudden there’s an excess supply of ram, gpu’s, drives, etc.
Hate to break it to you, but that’s not at all how that will work out.
I guess we’ll see.
There’s nothing to see. Those datacenters run specialized server hardware. If the AI bubble bursts, they’ll likely just be sold to another hosting/saas company as is.
Even if the hardware gets back into the market, it’s not consumer hardware. There will be no Ryzens and RTXs flooding the market, but Epyc/Xeons, Reg ECC RAM and videoless GPGPUs.
I only get wings from one bar on a deal night where they’re 50c each
I haven’t really bought new computer parts in forever, I just trade/sell what I have.
Soda, even from wholesellers it’s too much money
Lots of video games. I wait a few years usually.
Honestly I live a simple life in general, what upsets me is housing because nobody can escape that
What. 50 cents a wing is the top. Shit should be a quarter a wing! It’s a trash part of the bird! I mean, comparatively. it’s still good, but so is fuvking collard greens and hamhocks and lobster
100% yeah you’re right. It’s funny that, per pound of actual meat, even boneless thighs are cheaper now (in my zipcode, at least)
Laptops or anything gaming after the jump 3k. Nope I’m out!
It’s been more than 10 years it feels like since you could just buy a raspberry pi for a little side project.
Now you better have a good use for it, since it’s a good chunk of money.
I feel like raspberry pis have completely lost the plot. Now they’re just expensive mini PCs rather than low powered devices for hobby projects. By the time you get a case, a hat for NVME, and the sensors you want, it’s be cheaper to buy an actual mini-PC with even more power.
From a hobby perspective, the ESPs are where it’s at
I never liked going out to eat or drink, but its gotten insane lately. Seems like everywhere is $15 or more for a simple cocktail, $10 or more for a Miller Lite. Insulting when the staff might only be making $2.13 per hour, and I need to tip and add tax so that gets close to $20 for a drink I could have ppuree myself at home for probably $1. Bars and restaurants have also started to use Kore and more tactics to make themselves less pleasant to hang out in, enoucoraging faster consumption and quicker turn times to try to get more customers. Louder music, less comfortabke chairs, etc.
I used to build a gaming PC for both myself and my wife roughly every 6 or 7 years. I never needed anything top-of-the-line: I am perfectly satisfied with 1080p 60fps and playing older games. I liked to maximize value. I built myself a PC in 2019 and my wife one in 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to hit. At this point I am starting to wonder whether those will be the last PC’s I will afford in my lifetime.
I expect Streaming Services will be a common answer here. I started messing around with Jellyfin a few years ago, and my wife and I had slowly been buying DVD’s and Blu-Rays, occasionally supplemented by the high seas. This year we finally canceled our HBO and Netflix subscriptions. We also decided to try to cancel Spotify, so I went ahead and ripped all our CD’s, gathered our pirated collection (organized separately to make it easier to potentially decide to buy that music later), and started buying more music from artists directly. I’m good enough to cancel today, but my wife has become accustomed to the near-infinite supply of variety that Spotify has so… Yeah
I feel that a lot of this has to do with how in the past it was okay to have a restaurant, and make enough money from it to maintain a family. But nowadays for some people, if your restaurant doesn’t make you enough to buy yourself a second private jet, then why even bother?
I didn’t even know if it is that so much as local places getting bought out. In my city one investment group owns like 12-15 “local” downtown restaurants now and jacked the prices at all of them.
This has also happened where I live (Aus). It’s crazy that so many places that seem completely separate are actually owned by the same Overlord(s).
I have a small garden for a hobby and mental health. I spent $30 on 2 bags of fucking DIRT yesterday. What am I doing? Dirt was $30!?!? I guess I can’t even afford dirt anymore. 😭
im very fond of succulents, but i just dont have the time to research all of them. not the “ornamentals” you see in peoples front yards.
Having a few small succulents on a desk is underrated. I have a half height bookshelf thing up against the big window where my computer desk is and I have a whole row of plants there to get sunlight. Cactus, pothos, succulents, little flowers and random plants I am rooting to eventually plant, just whatever.
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When someone says something is dirt cheap, I’ll remember this and temper my expectations haha
Practically everything. My phone, garbage, insurance, food, gas, electric, internet, cable . . . everything went up seemingly at the same time. There are a lot of products and businesses I just outright boycott based upon GOP reasons. I pretty much eliminate grocery stores in the summer and buy from local farms. I partition my trash into small bags and deposit them in trash cans and eliminated my garbage pick up. I compost all scraps. Started a vegetable garden. Grow my own cannabis. Switched to USMobile for $10 a month unlimited. Torrent everything. Cut cable. I used to eat out about three times a week and that is now zero. Overall, I am eating better and even lost about 15 pounds. I discovered bin stores. I find myself buying more stuff that I don’t need but want. I found a $500 Garmin watch on dollar day. The only wrong with it was it was missing the band so I found one that fit and got that for a buck. On $3 day last week I found a pair of ar6 walkie talkies sealed. On $12 day I found a 32" TV and leaf blower, both sealed. I can’t see myself ever paying full price again, shopping in a store or even online.
I refuse to pump my car tyres from petrol stations anymore because all the ones in my local area have started charging exorbitant prices. It always used to be free with petrol, then a few years ago it became 20p, but now it’s randomly shot up to £1.50. WHY??
You can buy devices that pump your car tyres up for you too. They tend not to last very long, so they’re not exactly “one time” purchases, but they’re far more cost effective than doing it at stations nowadays.!
Not to be crazy, but you can pump up a car tire with a bicycle tire pump. It’s all compressed air
I have a battery powered air pump from Ryobi that works great for keeping my tires filled. Don’t remember what I paid bout I’ve been using it on one of my tires with a slow leak for months and it’s probably almost paid for itself at this point.
I just bought a bicycle foot pump. Sure it’s slightly inconvenient and requires some leg work. But, I’ve gone through one about every other decade. Also, I’m not tethered to a car with a working battery.
It’s probably a couple bucks more, but a battery air compressor works great for bicycles, cars, etc. and saves some of the hassle. Had mine for about 5 years and its still chugging along.
Speaking from experience, storing batteries or a battery operated device in a car is just asking for a bad time.
Movie Theatre Popped Corn.
That not only got expensive AF, but about half my local theaters stopped popping it. It comes stale in a large bag and they put it in their bin and salt/butter it. it’s horrible.
We considered going to the movies for The Odyssey until we realized it would be over $75 for the three of us (husband/wife/kid). I think I’ve been prived out of the movies, the last one I saw in theater was Uncle Drew.
Theaters cost over 100€ for the four of us… Am not Paying 15€ for a bag of candy. Its so stupid. And then you have people on their phones during the screening.
We bought a decent TV 3weeks before the latest model dropped in store, meaning we saved 40% of the price tag. Homemade popcorn is practically free, you can pause the movie anytime to go take a piss. I don’t see myself going back.
Side note: we have been doing the seasonal store discounts whenever we need stuff. Outdoor furniture 50-70% off, etc. Its the IRL equivalent of the Steam Summer sales :D. We bookmark stuff and wait.
Fast food is hilariously overpriced. You pay about as much for a sit down meal at a restaurant for some crappy burgers. I remember the days when they had a true dollar menu. Now they just call it a “value menu” or whatever.
Used to be able to get two double cheeseburgers for $2 at burger king. Add fries and a drink and you were sitting at about $8 after tax. That same order today will run you about $19 before taxes. I’m not even that old, this all happened within the last two decades or so - prices literally more than doubling and all the while the quality getting worse and portion size getting smaller and smaller.
It’s probably better for my health that I can’t stomach the idea of paying that much for greasy unhealthy food, so it’s an occasional treat to let me have that nostalgic taste.
Burger King is the worst offender of Restaurantitus.
They forgot they are fast food, so now try to sell 10 dollar burgers and other ridiculous shit at sitdown prices.
McDonalds is the worst offender for just plain price gouging. Their 99 cent menu doesnt exist anymore, all the shit that WAS on the 99 cent menu is now like 4-5 bucks.
Which is what a fucking bigmac used to cost, and we’d groan about the big mac being 5 dollars.
Never eat out without a coupon!
I got lunch for my mom and myself at Five Guys the other day. Two burgers, one order of fries, two fountain drinks, $44. I wouldn’t even have minded the price if it had been, y’know, fantastic food, but it was just mid. Burgers were bland, fries were limp and greasy – so greasy that the bottom of the bag broke open when I got it home – and even the drinks were watery. For $44!
I tried Taco Bell yesterday for the first time in years. At least it was “only” $11 for a mexican pizza, two tacos and a large drink. Unfortunately it was utterly disgusting, everything tasted like stale wheat flour which was weird because I don’t think the food actually had wheat flour in it anywhere.
Any streaming service.
It’s not even about the money specifically, if that’s what it actually cost or if it was going to a good place. It’s the greed of constantly trying to find that line on how hard they can squeeze and at what price point people will keep taking it.
Yep. The Golden Age of Streaming was finished years ago. Once we had a whole pie. Maybe cut into a few slices. Now we have a fragmented pie, cut into tiny slices and it looks like Jim tried to fuck it again.